0:00 For nearly nine hundred years, my Academy in Athens taught that a single, perfect Good existed beyond our senses.0:10 A truth that doesn't change, whether you live in Greece or Germania, in this century or the next.0:19 And for two thousand years, that beautiful story gave philosophers comfort.0:26 It gave them a sense of order.0:29 But it's a fiction, a perspective.0:32 There is no world of perfect Forms behind this one.0:37 There is only this world.0:40 A fiction?0:40 Is the truth of mathematics a fiction?0:44 Two plus two equals four.0:46 It is not a matter of perspective.0:50 It is simply true, and our minds recognize it as such.0:55 So it is with Justice, with Courage, with the Good itself.1:00 That's fair, except you mistake a useful system for ultimate reality.1:07 We invented numbers to count things.1:10 We invented "good" and "evil" to value things.1:14 These are human tools, not divine blueprints.1:19 Tools for what?1:20 If there is no objective Good, then what stops any person from declaring their own private morality?1:30 What stops the powerful from simply calling their cruelty "good"?1:36 We would have chaos.1:38 It's not chaos, it's life!1:40 The powerful already define what is good.1:44 They call their own traits noble.1:47 The weak then perform what I call a revaluation.1:51 They call the traits of the powerful "evil," and their own meekness "good." That is the origin of your morality.2:02 So you're saying compassion and humility are just the inventions of the powerless?2:10 I see them as reflections, however faint, of a perfect Goodness we should all strive for.2:18 It is the standard by which we can rise above our base instincts.2:24 You see striving.2:26 I see the "will to power." Every living thing seeks to expand its strength, to overcome, to become more than it is.2:37 Your "Good" is a cage you built to stop humanity from becoming what it could be...2:44 the Übermensch.2:46 This vision of yours...2:48 this "Overman"...2:50 it sounds terribly lonely.2:52 He answers to no truth but his own.2:55 He is a law unto himself.2:58 He creates his own laws.3:00 He sculpts his own values.3:02 Your world of perfect Forms requires a divine craftsman, a guarantor of Truth.3:10 But that God is dead.3:12 And we have killed him.3:14 I...3:14 I hear the terror in that statement.3:18 If we've killed the source of all meaning, then we are adrift in a meaningless universe.3:26 That is the abyss.3:28 That is nihilism.3:29 No!3:30 It is freedom!3:31 It is a terrible, glorious freedom.3:34 Now, for the first time, humanity can create its own meaning.3:40 We are no longer children living by another's rules.3:45 Alright, I'll give you this: humans clearly struggle to grasp the Forms.3:52 We live in the shadows of the cave.3:55 But the question is what we value more: the difficult search for a shared light, or the lonely freedom of our own darkness?
